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Press Release

FORT MYERS, FL - Consumers Digest magazine ranks Florida Gulf Coast University no.11 in its "Top 50 Best Values for Public Colleges and Universities" in its current issue employing factors such as grade point average of entering students, student-to-faculty ratio and percentage of faculty holding terminal degrees.

"The factors that go into selecting a college are as plentiful and diverse as the multitudes of students who enroll at universities each fall. While Consumers Digest realizes the cost of attending should not be the only factor a student considers when selecting a college, we do feel it is an important consideration for many families struggling to keep pace with the escalating price of higher education," Consumers Digest () said.

"FGCU is delighted that the independent research conducted by Consumers Digest identifies our institution as a high quality, yet affordable University," President William C. Merwin said. "Thanks to our basic values of small classes, nationally recruited high quality faculty, and our intellectually curious students, we have developed a University with great appeal to students and families that want the very best."

To determine the selections, Consumers Digest pared 3,500 schools to 125 with a preliminary evaluation of academic excellence utilizing collegeboard.com (). Schools on the list were asked to supply data. Consumers Digest developed and applied a formula to the data that balanced academic excellence factors with educational quality factors to generate a "value-index score" for each institution.

"That score and the estimated cost of attending each college, such as tuition, required fees, and average room and board, were then applied to a formula to determine which schools offered the most academic value per dollar," Consumers Digest managing editor Richard Dzierwa said.

"For public universities, only nonresident tuition figures were considered, since attending a public school in the state where you reside will almost always offer the best value for your education dollar. Military institutions and extremely specialized colleges that do not charge tuition were also not considered."

Two other Florida public universities placed in the top 50. Florida International University ranked no.1 and University of North Florida ranked no.7.

For more information, contact associate vice president for Community Relations Audrea Anderson at (239) 590-1083.